Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Ken Grumski, vice president of federal services at Waste Control Specialists, on Wednesday announced he is leaving the company to take an executive position with SECUR LLC. In an email to dozens of industry and government officials, Grumski said Friday will be his last day at the Dallas-based company that operates a complex near Andrews, Texas, for storage of […]

LANS Earns 90% of FY16 Fee for Lab Cleanup Contract By Chris Schneidmiller Los Alamos National Security earned 90 percent of available fees in fiscal 2016 for its bridge contract for legacy cleanup operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the latest performance scorecard from the Department of Energy’s Office […]

The top contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is looking for clarity on whether millions of dollars in “unallowable” expense filings in recent years were actually unallowable, as claimed by the federal government, On March 18, the Department of Justice sued Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the management and operations contractor for the […]

The Donald Trump administration could save a lot of money by building a deep geologic repository just for Cold War nuclear waste, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said here Wednesday after his farewell speech to the Beltway press corps. The key, Moniz told reporters after prepared remarks at the National Press Club, is whether the incoming […]

Up on Capitol Hill, a few congressional committees with jurisdiction over the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear cleanup and nuclear arsenal programs officially got new leaders for the new Congress this week. Most of the changes announced so far are in the Republican-controlled House, where the GOP has instituted term limits for chairs of standing committees such […]

CARLSBAD, N.M. — Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Monday put the incoming Donald Trump administration on notice that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) ― the nation’s only deep-underground nuclear waste disposal site ― is too important to fail. Less than two weeks before the president who nominated him leaves office, Moniz headlined a group […]

Bechtel National and its primary subcontractor, AECOM, have created a new company for on-site work at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant (WTP). Bechtel National remains the prime contractor for the WTP project and has total responsibility for delivering the vitrification plant to the Department of Energy, said Peggy McCullough, the company’s project director, in […]

The Idaho National Laboratory’s cleanup contractor, Fluor Idaho, has been paid $4.1 million in performance award and incentive fees since in June taking over the contracts of CH2M-WG Idaho and Idaho Treatment Group. Fluor will receive its first formal performance report card at the end of fiscal 2017. The contractor is expected to tally another […]

The Energy Department on Jan. 6 released a draft environmental impact statement for soil and groundwater cleanup and building demolition at the former rocket and atomic test site at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif. The overdue draft — DOE once thought it would finish the site’s environmental impact process last year — examines a range […]

The entire Washington state congressional delegation on Monday urged President-elect Donald Trump to make environmental cleanup, worker health, and the safety of nearby communities at the Hanford Site a priority in his administration. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) organized the letter sent to Trump, which was also signed by Sen. Patty Murray (D) and the state’s […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico has completed construction of its Transuranic Waste Facility (TWF) and the readiness process has begun, an individual familiar with the project said this week. The facility is expected to begin receiving waste by next spring or summer. The facility is intended for storage of newly generated […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor earned 94 percent, $23.2 million out of a possible $24.6 million, of its performance award and incentive fees for fiscal 2016. On the recently released performance scorecard, the Department of Energy highlighted Savannah River Remediation’s (SRR) response in February to a leak in an evaporator pot, which slowed […]

South Carolina has hit the restart button on a multimillion-dollar fine over a missed plutonium disposition deadline at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS). A 2003 agreement between the state and DOE requires the federal government to process 1 metric ton of plutonium at SRS through the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), […]

  The Department of Energy said it has made significant progress in resolving technical issues that have slowed progress on construction of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant since 2012. DOE’s Office of River Protection has sent letters describing resolution of three of the eight technical issues to the agency headquarters, where they are being […]

A waste disposal project at the Savannah River Site took another step forward recently when the facility’s liquid waste contractor conducted a successful leak tightness test for Saltstone Disposal Unit 6 (SDU 6). SDU 6 is the first 30-million gallon, megavolume salt waste disposal concrete unit constructed at the Department of Energy site in South […]

The Department of Energy made significant advances in cleaning up the legacy of its Cold War nuclear weapons operations during the eight years of the Obama administration, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Thursday in his Cabinet Exit Memo. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding “accelerated the cleanup of contaminated, often hazardous, legacy sites from the […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) scooped up nearly all of its available award fee for cleanup operations at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee in the six months ended Sept. 30, according to the contractor’s latest award-fee scorecard. During the period just scored, UCOR earned some $3.4 million in fees, good for about 94 […]

Hanford Site tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) received 77 percent of the award fee available for fiscal 2016, down from 88 percent for the previous budget year, according to a Department of Energy scorecard. “WRPS performed adequately through a turbulent year, but there were times when substantial ORP [DOE Office of River […]

The Energy Department has to date spent about $785 million on its Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, a DOE spokeswoman said, a tally that is more than $200 million over budget. The system’s budget was capped at $571 million in 2010, while a 2006 estimate had said the facility — designed […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has wasted no time in inviting President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for energy secretary to visit the Hanford Site. Newhouse issued an invitation to former Texas governor Rick Perry in a letter Thursday. Perry, also a former two-time presidential candidate, famously forgot the Department of Energy during a 2011 debate as one […]

The next head of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management could be a New York attorney who last served DOE in the Office of the General Counsel. Two sources this week said the incoming Donald Trump administration is considering Gary Lavine to head DOE’s $6-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear-cleanup program as assistant secretary for environmental […]

Jeffrey Carswell has been promoted to deputy manager of the Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, putting an end to talk that one of the leading figures in the agency’s years-long drive to reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was headed up the road to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Carswell — one […]

The recently reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could be ready to accept new shipments of nuclear waste from across the Energy Department’s nuclear complex by May, under an ambitious schedule being discussed internally in Carlsbad, N.M. For that to happen, WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) must bury transuranic waste marooned above ground at the site’s […]

The Energy Department may assess civil penalties against contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers within their ranks, under a new agency rule that goes into effect Jan. 26. The agency released a summary of the final rule late last year in the Federal Register. Senate Democrats from Washington state and Oregon, major stakeholders in the cleanup of the […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) scooped up nearly all of its available award fee for demolition and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee in the six months ended Sept. 30, according to the contractor’s latest award-fee scorecard. During the period just scored, UCOR earned some $3.4 million in fees, good for about 94 […]

The Savannah River Site’s security contractor earned $5.66 million out of a possible $5.92 million, or 95.5 percent, of its performance award fee for fiscal 2016. The Department of Energy highlighted Centerra-Savannah River Site’s efforts in keeping employees safe and cutting costs in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30. Contractors earn award fees each year by […]

A senior official at the Office of River Protection (ORP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state will early next year become deputy manager of the Richland Operations Office (RL) at the Department of Energy facility, according to an announcement Wednesday. Tom Fletcher currently is the DOE assistant manager for start-up, commissioning, and integration of […]

By the time the public comment period closes on the Energy Department’s draft plan for a Defense Waste Repository to house nuclear waste from military programs, the Donald Trump administration may already have decided if it wants DOE to pursue the project. While routinely delivered late in a new president’s first year in office, the […]